Message from Jim Klein, Chief Technology Officer, Las Virgenes Unified School District
We are pleased to announce that we've chosen to move from Zimbra to Google Apps for all of our digital communication and collaboration needs. Starting on January 15, 2014, you will be able to activate your Google Apps account and begin using Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, and all of the other great applications in the Google Apps suite.
Google Apps is a suite of web-based messaging and collaboration
applications that Google hosts on their own servers. Google provides
these applications as a "service," rather than as software you have to download
and install. To access these applications, you simply use a web browser
on any computer that's connected to the Internet.
Why did we choose Google Apps?
We have been in need of better ways to communicate and collaborate as educators, students, and staff for some time. Google Apps brings us more powerful communication, creation, and sharing tools, without any additional costs. Some of the benefits include:
- Innovative solutions — We can leverage the ongoing creative and
technical solutions of the Google Apps platform to provide staff and students with powerful, easy-to-use tools for getting their work done
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Highly scalable environment — With Google Apps, our capacity will grow automatically as the district grows, and we'll avoid the complexity of internal systems
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Access to services from anywhere, at anytime — A key benefit of
the Google Apps solution is that we can access email, contacts, and
calendar from any computer or mobile device with an Internet
connection, from anywhere in the world
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More collaboration features — With Google's next-generation applications, we can collaborate with colleagues, parents, and the community more easily and efficiently than ever before
What does Google Apps include?
Your new Google Apps account will include the following services:
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Gmail
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Google Calendar
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Google Hangouts |
Google Docs/Drive |
Google Sites
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YouTube |
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Lots of storage — You get a full 30 GB of online storage for your email (much more than the 5 GB you have now), so you can archive all of your email online. You'll no
longer need to worry about deleting messages or saving them in offline
folders.
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Enhanced message organization and retrieval — With Gmail,
you'll spend less time managing folders and searching for messages. For
example, you can add one or more tags, or "labels," to your messages to
organize and store them more efficiently. And with the Google-powered
search feature, you can find any message quickly and easily, whether
it's in your Inbox or stored in your message archive.
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Easier calendar sharing — Google Calendar lets you quickly and easily share your calendars with anyone and specify the details you want to show. Calendar sharing is a great
way to keep others informed about your
schedules. Now it's easier than ever to find out if someone is in a
meeting, at a conference, or on vacation.
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Integrated text/video chat — With the Google Hangouts instant messaging
application, you can communicate instantly with other people both inside LVUSD and out via video or text right
from the Gmail interface. In addition, all your text chats are automatically
saved, so you can always retrieve important
information later.
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Real-time collaboration — Using Google Docs and Drive, you can create
documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, and more, that you and your team can view and edit at the same time. You can still use your Microsoft Office products as needed, but now you'll have more options for storing and collaborating on your documents and files.
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Easy-to-build web sites — With Google Sites, you have the ability to quickly publish a robust web site on which to
gather all sorts of shared information, such as documents, presentations, files, and videos. You can even embed
Google calendars, discussion forums, and other gadgets on your site!
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Powerful video sharing — Using your LVUSD YouTube account, you can easily share videos for a whole new level of communication and collaboration.
Ready to get started?
Great! Just click on "Quick Start" at the top left of this page to activate your account and learn the basics. Once you've had a chance to experiment with the powerful Google Tools, be sure to come back to this site for more great information, tutorials, and videos that will help you make the most of Google Apps.
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